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For Patrons Only: The mystery begins, but don’t worry, our cast came prepared with totally sensible D&D builds. Miss Whyte’s a knife-catching monk, Professor Plumb is an artificer with a sweet tooth, and Mr. Greene… well, let’s just say his “Verdant Blast” involves hurling a full potted money tree straight at your head. Gunfire, Gatsby vibes, and a rope made of human hair — this first night at the Boddie Estate already feels like it’s one Meteor Swarm away from total disaster.

Comments

Alyssa

Brennan intro threw me for a loop! A-hoo hoo 🔥

CW

Hey gang!

The Wizard Subjudice

Brennan, you are on the shortest list ever of people who can straight up recommend a book I would've seen on my mandatory text list at uni, and convince me I'll actually like it this time

Alyssa

Brennan going “I’m here to do drugs and disassociate, does that make sense? At least at my college that was the experience.” Yeah, my guy…didn’t you go to SUNY New Paltz?

The Pompous Peasant

ohhhhhhh yus!! i was not shure teh storie was in teh PIPE causr brennan was sneakn it in teh dark nasty with LOU and you knowe they touchin funny style in teh biliards with thuse cue sticjs? lololo;lolololok and LOU!!! i think its also abria with green going smelly maybe with teh gun IN it could be in teh study lolol;lolok prolly wrong. thanks!!!!

Brandon Brewer

I grew up playing Clue on the Super Nintendo with my family, which had music and animations and everything. It was great!

OpheliaHeine

Lol dont worry, Aabria. I get your Candyman reference -w-b

WWMSudoku

Straight up: My friends and I have dived so hard into performative behaviour we've turned Cockroach Poker into performance art

Taylor

Aabria and I “ew”ed at the same time, hearing Lou say Cyclops

Jill K.

Realized today that I might have once been in a role-playing forum game with BLeeM, and I don’t care how slim the odds are, my life just changed

Tara

J'accu-cu-cu!!

Sentimental Salamander

The Cyclops disrespect hurts. Cyclops is AWESOME! I'm a big fan of Nightcrawler and Storm

Amaya

Glad Lou and I have the same love for Clue. My family collected so many versions of Clue. We even had the Clue DVD game

Kelley Mc

I had the same thought! I loved written roleplay, honestly how I became the writer I am.

Jaxson Denton

Lou “I don’t have the constitution for capitalism” (not an exact quote but oh well) is my favorite version of Lou

Dream Wizard Kyle Arca

Know what I love about Clue? Forensics doesn't exist. You wanna look for what, Wound Types? No. You wanna look for what, a blood trail? No. You WILL, however, do some odd detective work. I love it. ❤️

Kelley Mc

“Friend of Dorthy” is Folk Speech from at least WW2.

ChosenOfAeterna

Highly recommend reading “A Dangerous Fortune” by Ken Follett. It’s very much a nod to the times and also showing those complex relationships of those who grow up with wealth and those who grow up wealth adjacent and how some surpass others and how that’s received. It’s a really great book.

Jayfeather

the gut instinct for x-men was cyclops, but after thinking for any amount of time obviously its gambit. those kinetically-charged playing cards fuck judiciously

El

I have so many thoughts lol The first being I want to know what the theme of the RPG forms he was on lol 😆 also my family and I did a lot of mixing of games specifically card games - had one we used to play called 'California Spit' which was like a combo of California Speed and Spit and I think Egyption Rat Slat got added in at some point

Demelza Walkden

Kicking my feet giggling I love this podcast so much

E. Jason Davis

I now love Aabria more- fellow Cyclops hater.

Gabe

Did we get Aabria’s go to x-man?

Brandon Bozeman

Love what Brennan talked about sitting IRL and doing “improv storytelling”. My friends and I used to play something called just “The Game” where we played characters, either made up or actual people, in a setting like our home town and just riffed off each other. We’d sit at a restaurant for hours spouting out pure nonsense lol. I guess that was my first introduction to TTRPG!

jonathan holland

will Hint! season 2 use Clue Secret and Spies?

Flynn

The mention of Stenros and Montola’s work gave me so much anxiety lol. I just finished my Master’s thesis on storytelling in Actual Play media after almost two years worth of blood, sweat, and tears. For real though, it’s a good book.

Cait Batchelor

sad Erika isn’t here to get her flowers - they did so well!!

Dysole

I guess my odds are above zero as well but considering my experience with forum roleplaying games was playing Mafia/Werewolf on a site dedicated to a niche miniatures wargame where we all roleplayed as various characters from the minis game I'm gonna guess my odds are basically zero I've played a forum game with Brennan. It was a ton of fun though and I very much get why Brennan was drawn to that.

Sean Case

“J’accuterie” is now a permanent part of my vocabulary

The Witch of Words and Lore

In terms of childhood invented games, my friends little brother made a version of a game called Risk-opoly where the cash from Monopoly funded the war effort in Risk. I can’t remember the rules for the life of me and I’m fairly certain no one ever finished a game but it was a great idea.

Sean Beard

Aabria is me to my core cause I also said "EW" with the quickness

Spencer Bloom

I’ve played Terraforming Mars with a group where we all roleplay as corporate investors in Mars development and it’s surprisingly coherent and fun when someone patents something like pets on mars and has exclusive rights to all dogs imported from earth.

Sophie Crafton

Some real “this guy is just his character from Date Everything” moments from Brennan this episode

Ashton

CLUE FX!! I had it for forever and I tried to play it recently, but the electronics died.

Catherine

The conversation about adding rules has sent me right back to four square in middle school. If you aren't familiar, four square is like a combination of volleyball and ping pong; four people stand on a grid and try to get each other out by spiking/serving/etc. a ball at each other. But there was a ranking system, and that's CRITICAL. Because only four people could play a time, there would be a line. If you got to the front of the line, you entered at the bottom tier, the jester square. As people got out and went to the back of the line, you advanced in the rankings. And if you made it all the way to the top square, the king, you got to set a rule that everyone had to follow for as long as you ruled the game. It got crazy! A pretty standard rule was that the king got an extra life. It sounds annoying, but it was actually very accepted; if you'd earned the spot, you didn't want to lose it to a stupid mistake, and it didn't mess with anyone's gameplay. What people HATED were the people who would get to the top and set rules like "you can't use your hands" or "jump when you hit the ball." Those were bloodbaths. Even worse, though, was if a teacher played and got to the top; no middle schooler wants to play a game of four square where you have to name an element of the periodic table when you hit the ball.

Marcus

Nope!

Emily C

Sad for lack of Erika but needs must, A-clue clue and crackle crackle to all. Wasn't sure if Brennan realized he had to do host things as he was looking up book titles, old game characters, etc etc, or could be his default state. I love that part of Lou's character plan is just "do I got an ongoing bit where I can catch my breath and make people imagine some crazy ass candy" Optic white pajamas are so wild, are the rest of guests in pajamas or is she just rocking it? Are they pajamas that look like clothes?

Emily C

Can we read the thesis though???

Emily C

also love hearing spoons brought up, as a family/family friends we did NOT have kids rules, in fact kids had the advantage bc we were fast and wiley and would straight up jump over the table for a spoon

Juaria Farah

Don't worry Brennan that Beast is dead the Beast from the cartoons is back via clone

Juaria Farah

Correct take on the best on Cyclops Aabria but he is still good!! He's kinda like that right now actually

Juaria Farah

The pain that shot through me when it happened 😂😭 he's greattt I promisee!

Connor

Clue FX does in fact SLAP!

GrumblyArcher

Posting this here since this is the most recent Ep, and I just got caught up: Hearing that you guys are using Artlist.io as a resource is really frustrating and, frankly, angering. They are an AI company and even if you aren't using their AI services, you are giving them money that will be spent on developing and promoting this profoundly damaging technology. I get that you guys probably work on episodes in batches and won't be able to ditch Artlist immediately but hearing their name at the end of every episode of this miniseries will be a turd in the punch bowl each time. If using them becomes a pattern, I will no longer be able to support this podcast.

Kirsten Griffith

No shade to Ellie Goulding, but no one will ever top Fiona Apple's cover of pure imagination

The Wizard Subjudice

Sad that is USD (I mean, to be expected 😅,) but I'll see what I can find locally too. Thank you for sharing!

Abraham

Given the subject matter, here’s a book recommendation Brennan Lee Mulligan might enjoy: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9780816687169/metagaming/ It’s an academic treatise all about the games we play within games (which the book terms “metagames,” a word with interesting connotations in TTRPGs).

Nym

Here am I thinking Brennan’s going to say aren’t there people at college who are there to learn and get a degree (me), and no it’s “do drugs and disassociate” 🤣

Nym

The implication here is that it’s impossible not to metagame 🤔

Nym

Brennan will never not look something up in the exact moment he wants to know it 😂 I don’t think he can help it

Krisse S

I hope they address this :(

Nym

Gosh this conversation is bringing back so many forgotten memories. I LOVED four square, and double Dutch, and wall ball, tether ball, and no doubt a bunch of other things I’ve forgotten. Was there a version of hop scotch that was in a giant spiral? Also that teacher was dope 😂 I do feel bad for the kids though. “Simon says” type rules are more fun in less physical games I feel? Like Kings the card/drinking game.

Nym

Solid. I love that game. I wish I had more people to play it with. I still have to use a white board to think through the victory point system 😆

Krisse S

Spoons mentioned!! My friend group and I will play games into the ground and then add more rules to freshen them up. This the birth of ULTIMATE SPOONS. Where the last person who won was charged with hiding the spoons in another adjacent room. Once the person has all four of a kind it's a mad dash into the other room to see who could find a spoon the fastest. The best game we ever played was when they put all but one spoon on the floor in the middle of the room and the missing one inside of a couch cushion.

mguin

You can easily & accidentally draw blood playing spoons.

Josh H

Friends of Dorothy: regarding Aabria's history on "friend of Marlene" likely a reference to Marlene Dietrich who is a Queer icon and as out as she could have been around the time that HINT! tales place, deriving from "friend of Dorothy," that phrase is older than many know. The phrase “friend of Dorothy” started showing up as a kind of code for gay men in the mid-20th century, most likely in the 1940s and ’50s. It gave Queer people a discreet way to recognize each other without being too obvious. The reference comes from Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz—and of course Judy Garland, who was and is gay icon. It's hard to pin down exactly when the expression was first used, but it stayed in circulation well into the 1980s.

Josh H

How did I miss this? Where did they say that?

Avaria

Where are my Clue: Master Detective people? Bigger mansion (8 more rooms including outside locations), extra weapons (horseshoe and poison), additional suspects (Miss Peach, Madame Rose, Monsieur Brunette, and Sargeant Grey)

Elizabeth M.

now forever haunted by the idea that at some point during the AOL RP era in The Forest, RDI or the greater RhyDin i may have written with brennan

Wren

Brennan talking about building blocks of games with very young children, made me think of an amazing book about the very basis of story telling in childhood and with teaching - The Grammar of Fantasy by Gianni Rodari

GrumblyArcher

Very end of the first episode and in the show notes.

GrumblyArcher

I'm really trying to give the gang the benefit of the doubt but Artlist.io does not exactly hide the fact that they do a bunch of AI stuff. I had to wage a small war blocking all of their ads recently because they were so busy crowing about it and I was sick of hearing about it. All it takes is popping over to their website to see that two of their flagship services are AI videos and, more immediately, AI voiceovers. How long before they start offering AI voice actors?

Ricky the Moist

Lou picking Cyclops is so fucking real and Aabria opposing is baffling I would have guessed she’d fuck with Cyclops heavy tbh

Josh Hopkins

Yeah Cyclops is the best X-Man. It’s wrong to think otherwise.

Tournesol

Playing board games in a public setting where many of the core components are missing is SO real

Frimushroom

Gotta hop off my membership for a bit, I'm gonna miss the Fireside. You're doing great Erika with this story- still rooting for everyone via public content. Can't wait to see who done it

Fishes

Its so validating to hear how obsessed and INTO Clue Lou (Clou) is, as a fellow clue obsessor

Glen Petrofski

OMG! I completely forgot about the game spoons!!!!! Making me all nostalgic

Zephry Wright

I started to feverishly type "HE'S A REVEREND! HE'S REVEREND GREEN, BRENNAN!" And then looked it up to find out that at my big age of 30, I just found out he wasn't a real reverend

Muadwho

Mr. Green sounds a lot like... Herbie Plantman, Esquire!

Jordan T. Maxwell

I will not stand for this Scott Summers disrespect! 😎😂

Jonathan Crawshaw

The talk about Green being like the playmate of the prince gave me shades of Suvi and Hanna

Cackle Cackle

The first responders in the chat are begging you to take a quick look around prior to running toward the Big Smoking Thing. First step: assess the situation! (Ok CPR nerrrrrrd shhh it was just a bit)

Lyndall Cave

Well this hits different listening after the 10th of September.

Ashley Teatum

All I want for Christmas is to find the RPG forums I used to post in so I can read my old writing 🤌✨ (requires remembering the name of where we posted, and my memory is Swiss cheese)

Amy L

The people need to know!!

Lily Cole

25:25 Not “Pure Imagination” but there is a slowed down cover version of “The Candy Man” by Cibo Matto that would absolutely work in a horror movie version of Willy Wonka

Bulbarat

Regarding playing games in creative ways (14:58) I grew up playing munchkin as a roleplay game. I didn't know there was any other way to play it until I got older and played it with friends who just... Weren't playing their characters?? Weren't doing voices or dialogue?? Weren't describing their actions??

Matt Gosper

Apologies if someone already hits this in the episode, but: HINT!: Ahoo-hoo-dunnit podcast

Ryanath

Brennan’s story about not being bothered by the dark forest is very relatable. I have has times where I'm camping and am like “we should go walk around the lake in the pitch dark, its fun i promise” and my friends hear some tiny little coyotes howling in the distance and are like “nah, we are hiding in the cabin”

Jake Levinson

First thing I’ve learned from this, Abrean was clueless as a child. >:) I will not apologize for a wonderful pun.

Juniper Taylor

My fiancée’s family plays Twilight Imperium every Christmas and I try to convince them to add roleplay every time… to no avail. 😭

taylor johnson

Growing up playing with my best friends family, spoons is a dangerous, almost deadly game. Hands and fingers were sprained often enough that a no hand jewelry rule had to be placed

Glen Petrofski

Vicious! I was in the younger end of a large family (double digit siblings) so it was and wasn't vicious. I learnt to be tactical

Kaylub Clark

Brennan is gonna DM for Critical Role and Erika is gonna be the Ghost of Yotei? Is this payback for Lou always missing vods because of Peru; y'all had to get busy schedules too.

Martian

*listening to Lou geek out about Clue* look at Heidi Clue over here!

Jack1Spade Creations

When we play Bang! (western themed card game) we speak in character and narrate our turns as scenes in a movie.

Lauren Hartz

I love that I used this to buy the book for my husband on Bookshop.org and then 10 seconds later Brennan goes "I'm going to go to Bookshop.org and order the book". It was a very "Same hat!" moment

The Wizard Sparrow

Clue FX??? Sounds fun. Per my internet search it was released in 2003. Well beyond my childhood years😳😂. The original clue I would play all the time with my best friend. Plenty of good memories❤️

The Wizard Sparrow

Never heard of Twilight Imperium. Here I come ChatGPT 😂

Avaria

It definitely is. The map/board is beautiful and I love the bios on the added characters

Tangerine 15

We were a Sequence household

beth

I'm wondering if any of you have played the VCR game of Clue? My great uncle played Colonel Mustard in it.

Tyra

Holy shit a shout out to my friends and fellow Nordic larpers Markus and Jaako! I second that recommendation! They are two brilliant game scholars and larpers. Come to the Nordic larp conference Knutepunkt/Solmukohta and hear them speak on the subject and have a blast!

Jake walker

I had to stop and physically look around at an empty room to see if anyone else caught the “slightly artificial” peanut butter comment from Brennan to Lou. Even in pure audio, I could *see* Lou get hit by that and have to play through. Amazing shot

hababby

Crazy hearing brennan talk about the X-Men when he wrote a comic that's like what X-Men could have been if it had achieved the narrative and thematic potential of its premise. It's called Strong Female Protagonist and it isn't finished but maybe one day, if enough of us read it...... https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-1/page-0/

Denise

It was so wild to come across this comic as an adult, when I was HUGELY into webcomics as a teenager. I went to TCAF a few times, and if I'd known about SFP at the time I would absolutely have been at Brennan and Lee Ostertag's booth! It's such a funny "ships in the night" moment for me.

Chad Bonar

Now that you guys have done it with clue you should look into Betrayal House on the Hill!

Fraud_Monet

awh, I think X-men has succeeded in it potential before..

Fraud_Monet

Hearing Brennan incorrectly reference Civil War and mix up Captain America with Ironman, in as far as which side they held the line for, scraped my soul. I love Cap and view Brennan as at least somewhat spiritually in-line with and (for me) representative of kind of real-world Captain America

Theo Vařák

Correction about gays and cruises: "cruising" in queer slang means walking around an area and looking for gay sex, not literal boats

Millie Yule

The discussion about RP on top of board games and video games unlocked those childhood memories - I LOVED doing that when I was younger and I still annoy teenage family members by RPing Cluedo (sometimes the play pieces just want to kiss)

Millie Yule

In the actual episode I didn't realise this was Clue(do) until Prof. Plum cause I am from the UK and we have Mr Black (not Boddie) and Rev. Green (not Mr) 😭

J. Gro

My memory of Clue is that of wasted turns in the hallway in between rooms and other players showing me the same cards every single time. I've been running a board game meetup for the last 14 years, and I'm here to tell you that there are better "who dunnit" board games!! I strongly recommend Mystery Express (perhaps my favorite board game) and Awkward Guests.

Joe Howard

We used to play “Ultimate Spoons”!!! Which was just spoons but the spoons were across the room so it would just become a race. It was awesome

Joe Howard

Wait this is insane, me and my siblings used to do almost exactly this and we also called it Ultimate spoons! The only difference is they weren’t hidden so it was just a race not a search, but that’s crazy!